


Candle

by emeralddarkness



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Short, no mockingjay spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 18:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2743433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeralddarkness/pseuds/emeralddarkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They call her the girl on fire, but Katniss feels as though she's been carved from wax.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Candle

They call her the girl on fire, but Katniss feels as though she's been carved from wax. The metaphor seems appropriate; District 12 was cold, and the numbing sameness that spread itself over everything had kept her wax self hardened enough to remain herself for years. It had been a new her after the forging of her father's death of course, because when she was eleven she had to mold herself into some new girl - the strong one, the protector, the provider - but even then, she'd never been called on to be very much more than Katniss Everdeen, and after the first few painful months she had been able to grow and stretch to fill the new role. But now, now ever since the 74th Hunger Games, she wasn't just Katniss Everdeen. She was the Girl on Fire, and the heat of her title and circumstances were steadily melting her away.

She wants to scream at Peeta sometimes, for always being so _kind_. So very understanding, so comforting, willing, patient, so _loving_. It's not fair to him, and she realizes that. Sometimes she wonders if she might not be able to steady into a shape that could love him in return, if the fire were taken away long enough to give her a chance. If the cameras and the lights and the sighing romantics who were lapping up the story of the star-crossed lovers of District 12 could just be swept away, as one sweeps back a curtain to let in the sun, then perhaps she could love him, but the charade has instead turned this love story into a trap, and sometimes she almost wonders if she hates him instead. And that's not fair. It is, after all, not really his fault that she will be left to play for an audience for the rest of her life, and that any real affection or joy of partnership she might have known must give way to a sweeping romance. It's not his fault, but sometimes she still wants to blame him, for loving her when she will likely never be given the chance to discover if she might have loved him back.


End file.
